Motor Industry

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 2:30 pm on 17 December 2008.

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Photo of Sandra Gidley Sandra Gidley Shadow Minister, Health 2:30, 17 December 2008

I am delighted to have the opportunity to debate this subject. Since applying for the debate, the matter seems to have risen up the political temperature gauge. I was moved to apply for it after intervening on the Chancellor during the three-hour debate on the pre-Budget report, when I asked about support for the British motor industry, and whether we would emulate Europe. His response was that Europe was important, and he then started talking about Scottish whisky. I know that Scottish whisky is important to the Chancellor, but cars cannot run on whisky—[Interruption.]Perhaps they can, but that would be rather a waste. At the time, the subject did not seem to be prominent on the Government's radar. It may have been on the radar of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, but it certainly does not seem to have been on the Treasury's radar.

As so often, my initial interest arose because of a constituency concern. Many people think that Romsey is leafy Hampshire, but my constituency includes part of Southampton, which is home to the Ford transit, and proud to be so—or was. The factory is at the edge of my constituency, and a number of my constituents work there. It is fair to say that there were a few problems there and concerns about the future before the credit crunch began to hit home.

I was expecting some local Members to be here, and I had not intended to talk at length about Southampton, but Ford is facing specific problems. A planned redesign of the transit involved a potential refitting of the factory when the company's plant in Kocaeli in Turkey was producing vans at lower cost. That naturally caused the company to rethink what work could be most profitably completed in Southampton. The plans are supposedly not finalised, but all the signs suggest that Southampton will produce only the chassis base, which will mean fewer local jobs for local people. That was going on before the downturn in sales that led to temporary contracts being ended and an increase in the number of down days at the factory.

Today, I want to speak in a more general context. It has become apparent in recent weeks that the problem is not just a little local difficulty. If we continue to sleepwalk towards disaster, vehicle manufacture will be declared the United Kingdom's latest economic catastrophe. As someone with serious concerns about the decline in Britain's manufacturing base generally, I suggest that it is important to retain what is left. So how bad is it?